I've just started reading "The Penguin History of the USA" by Hugh Brogan, and on page 4 he writes: "From time to time significant objects were washed onto the coasts of the old world: bodies of strange men, wood carvings, branches of unknown trees." He then implies that people didn't bother with these unknown objects, calling them 'clues that led to nothing' (paraphrasing there).

Reading that just made me wonder - is there any record of that happening? And what were people's reactions to it when it happened, especially in cases of a human body washing ashore?